


Sal

by song_of_staying



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 06:09:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9706586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/song_of_staying/pseuds/song_of_staying
Summary: “How did youknow, Grunkle Stan?” Mabel asked, still not letting go of her daemon. “Is it ancient smuggling lore? Did you know a guy who knew a guy?”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertScribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertScribe/gifts).



Stan put his legs up and counted the profit. The stack was still damp, because Stan had hidden it in his pants when certain customers came back demanding a refund. Truth be told, that made counting it even sweeter. Sal coiled around his shoulders, and hissed like a relief valve. She was pleased too. _She_ 'd stayed on the right side of the dunking tank, hung out with Soos and his Iliana. Kept out of sight, too, just in case some asshole thought Stan having a huge and imposing snake daemon meant that the game was going to be rigged.

Stan loved conning money out of that kind of bigot.

"I wonder if the kids are okay," Sal said. "What with that angry mob and all."

"Eh, they'll be fine. There comes a time in every child's life when he - or she - gets accused of witchcraft by angry farmers. We're not gonna coddle them."

"Sure," Sal agreed. "But we'll send Soos to go look for them, right?"

"You got it."

But they were both really comfortable, so they gave it a moment, and then the kids came flooding in anyway. Stan tucked the money away under his cushion, more out of habit than anything.

"Grunkle Stan, _Grunkle Stan_." Mabel was hyperventilating a little. "Guess what, guess what!"

He looked them over. Mabel's daemon was a pig, and looked better than usual. Glowy. Dipper was sulking but pretending not to, and his Tyrone kept changing from a hummingbird to some kind of duck and then back again.

"Your daemon settled?"

"No, _my daemon settled_." She squeezed the pig's neck and smiled so wide that Stan's face muscles copied it, in sympathy. "You were right, I _didn't_ have to stop changing his name around first. It just happened! We won a game together and then - well, there was some stuff with Dipper that you don't want to hear about - and then Pacifica Northwest was there - and then he settled!"

Stan waited for Dipper to give his own version of events - just as incoherent, but in a different way - but instead, the kid was staring at him with huge eyes.

"How did you know about the name?" he asked.

"All the books say you have to stick with the one you're given," Tyrone said, and snapped his bill.

" _Dipper_ didn't stick with the name he was given," Sal pointed out, and Stan snorted.

"That's different!" Dipper didn't look sulky any more, just curious. “That’s just a nickname – daemons don’t have nicknames, do you?”

Sal laughed, and rested her head near Stan’s armpit.

“How did you _know_ , Grunkle Stan?” Mabel asked, still not letting go of her daemon. “Is it ancient smuggling lore? Did you know a guy who knew a guy?”

Stan shrugged, and Sal shrugged with him. “I knew because Sal had a different name before she settled.” Noises of awe from the kids, which was pretty rare, so he couldn’t stop himself from adding, “And I changed her name again when we moved to this town.”

“From what?” Mabel asked.

“Why?” Dipper demanded.

“From something longer, and because I wanted to, that’s why.”

It was _a really bad idea_ to bring that up in front of them. But he had to. He hated the way kids these days were taught that everything about their daemons was fixed at birth, like they had no chance of changing things if they needed to. Brainwashing, that’s what it was.

He scratched his free armpit, hoping it would chase the kids away. Sal cuddled under his chin.

“So have you got a new name for him now?” Dipper asked Mabel. “He doesn’t look like an Aoshima to me.” Tyrone turned into a hummingbird again, and hovered around the pig, then settled down behind his ear. They both seemed happy with this arrangement.

“I was hoping he’d tell me himself,” Mabel said. “But he doesn’t want to talk right now, do you, boy?”

Her daemon shook his head, and looked happy and cozy. Stan didn't think he was ever going to start talking, and was real glad Mabel wasn’t worried about that.

“So I was thinking," she said. "How about Waddles?”

It was a horrible name for a daemon, but Waddles made a kind of squealing noise – which was more noise than he'd ever made before, as far as Stan knew – and wagged his little piggy tail.

Dipper huffed a laugh. “Okay, that’s pretty cute.”

Stan knew Sal agreed, but she lifted her head and found her snakiest voice. “Ssscram, children,” she said. “Your Grunkle's got some serious accounting to do.”

* * *

Dipper was about to get snatched up by a zombie, and Mabel wasn’t going to get there in time - and then Waddles, wonderful Waddles, knocked Dipper out of the way.

Mabel knocked the zombie out. Dipper was safe. Her daemon had just come into contact with another person, and she didn’t feel any of the things she was supposed to.

There wasn’t _any_ horror, except for zombie-related horror, but that was different. There wasn’t any of the other thing either, the thing from the novels she wasn’t supposed to know about. It was just Dipper, and just Waddles. Waddles was completely okay.

Mabel didn’t have time to think about it right now, but maybe Waddles had an extra superpower. Or maybe he was just super. 

* * *

Sal curled around Bill, and she didn’t even freak out from the contact. She was a champ. This was _their_ turf, and they had nothing to lose. Bill had everything to lose, and he was going to.

“You’re crazy,” Bill said, and Stan loved hearing the panic in his voice. “You stupid – you’re gonna kill your own daemon? Think about what you’re doing.”

“It was Sal’s idea,” Stan said, and grinned when Sal crushed Bill’s arms to his body. “You think you’ve got humans and daemons all figured out. But Bill? You shouldn’t have messed with our family.” 

* * *

Mabel couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Sal wasn’t anywhere, and it was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Grunkle Stan looked happy, sitting in his chair, but he couldn’t be. Not if he was _alone_. Mabel didn’t even know what that meant. She had never thought about being severed – it wasn’t a real thing, it didn’t happen anymore, it was never supposed to happen here. To someone Mabel loved.

Soos was crying into Iliana’s mane. Dipper was about to cry, but he was still holding himself back. Tyrone was shaped like an owl, digging sharp claws into Dipper’s shoulder. She didn't know Grunkle Ford well enough to tell whether he was about to cry too. His ferret daemon was hidden from sight.

Mabel hugged Waddles, just once, and sat beside Grunkle Stan. Opened her scrapbook. If this didn’t work, she was going to go find some way to tear the universe apart and sew it back together right.

But it had to work. She had to get Sal back, now. She _missed_ her.

“Here's the first day we came to Gravity Falls, Grunkle Stan. And here's a macaroni interpretation of my emotions.”

“That time we went fishing?” asked Dipper.

“That Summerween we spent together?” asked Tyrone.

“Don't you remember anything?” Dipper’s voice cracked.

“I’m sorry,” Grunkle Stan said, and Mabel closed her eyes. “I don’t know what this is or why that owl’s talking or -”

Waddles leapt up into Grunkle Stan’s lap. “Ugh, quit it, Waddles,” Stan said. “Can’t you see I’m trying to recover - ”

Waddles licked his face, and Mabel didn’t feel any of the things she was supposed to. She felt like the sun was going to rise up her throat.

“What did you say?” Dipper choked out.

“I said, just because Sal isn’t here doesn’t mean Waddles can just make himself at home -”

Mabel hugged him, and hugged her beautiful daemon. She wasn’t ever going to let go.

Grunkle Ford said something to Dipper, very softly, and they went outside together. Mabel wasn’t sure why they didn’t have a group hug situation going on yet, but at least there was Soos.

“I thought this was going to be, like, the worst day of our life, dudes,” said Iliana.

“Yeah, well, you’re not insured for that,” Stan said, but then the door opened again.

Grunkle Ford was still quiet, and Dipper looked like he was going to throw up, in a good way. Tyrone had transformed into a heron, and he was taking long, careful strides.

In his beak, he held a tiny garden snake.


End file.
